Buddhist Teaching in India

Johannes Bronkhorst, Wisdom Publications (2009)

Acknowledgments

The book is an English translation of a German original titled “Die buddhistische Lehre,” which was published in 2000.
The translation was a collaborative effort by Danielle Feller, Rupert Gethin, Rita Langer, Joy Manné, and the author.
Financial assistance was provided by the De Boer Foundation at the University of Lausanne.

1. Introduction

A distinction is made between “Buddhist teaching” and “Buddhist philosophy,” with the book focusing on the former.
The selection of teachings is based on their importance to the Buddhist path of liberation, not on their philosophical interest to outsiders.
Buddhist teaching encompasses three main areas:
- The wisdom (prajñā) that leads to liberation.
- Practical instructions on how to follow the path, including rules of conduct (Vinaya-pitaka) and spiritual practices (Sūtra-pitaka).
- Beliefs not directly tied to liberation, such as cosmography, which can be linked to meditative states.
The book aims to be a selective overview that explains the connections between key teachings in their historical context, rather than an exhaustive encyclopedia.

2. The Teaching of the Buddha

Preliminary remarks on methodology

Scholars like Oldenberg and Glasenapp questioned whether the Buddha’s original teaching can be known for certain, suggesting available texts may only reflect the beliefs of the earliest community.
The text highlights a conflict between passages where the Buddha refuses to answer metaphysical questions (as noted by Edgerton) and others that assume a metaphysical system (the dharma theory).
The proposed method for identifying the Buddha’s original teaching is to accept as authentic the positions found in early discourses, unless they are contradicted by other canonical statements.
Contradictions are likely to have arisen from later developments within Buddhism or from the influence of non-Buddhist ideas prevalent at the time.

Main teachings

The Buddha’s core message, which is never contradicted in the texts, is the teaching of suffering and the path to its cessation.
This is famously formulated as the Four Noble Truths: the truth of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to cessation.
The origin of suffering is identified as “thirst” (craving or desire), and the path to its end is the Noble Eightfold Path.
A detailed description of the path includes abandoning household life, observing virtues, restraining the senses, maintaining mindfulness, and progressing through four stages of meditation (dhyāna).
The ultimate goal, liberation, is described as attainable within one’s lifetime through the destruction of “taints” like desire and ignorance.

Self and liberating knowledge

The Buddha’s teaching shared the context of other Indian religions, including the belief in rebirth and the goal of liberation from it.
Buddhism’s concept of action (karma) is distinct, emphasizing intention (cetanā) over purely physical acts.
The texts criticize the non-Buddhist idea of achieving liberation by knowing a permanent, joyful, and unchanging self (ātman).
The Buddha taught that the five aggregates constituting a person (form, sensation, ideation, etc.) are “not the self” (anātman) because they are impermanent and lead to suffering.
Liberation is attained by turning away from these aggregates, not by identifying a true self.
The early texts show inconsistency regarding the exact content of “liberating knowledge,” suggesting this concept was developed later under the influence of competing traditions.
The doctrine of Conditioned Origination appears to be a later synthesis attempting to reconcile “thirst” and “ignorance” as the root causes of suffering.

Asceticism and meditation

The Buddha’s path is presented as a “Middle Path” that avoids both sensual indulgence and extreme self-mortification.
Severe asceticism, associated with groups like the Jainas, aimed to eliminate past karma through practices like extreme fasting and breath-holding, which the Buddha is said to have tried and rejected as useless.
Despite this rejection, some Buddhist texts incorporate similar ascetic practices, likely due to rivalry and influence from these other movements.
The Buddha is also said to have rejected the meditative states taught by his former teachers, which focused on suppressing mental activity (e.g., the “Realm of Nothingness”).
However, these “formless states” were later incorporated into the Buddhist meditative system alongside the four original stages of meditation (dhyāna).
The original four stages are presented as “mystical” states, whereas the incorporated formless realms primarily aim at the cessation of mental activity.

Recapitulation

A significant portion of the teachings attributed to the Buddha in the ancient canon may not be original but rather later additions influenced by two major non-Buddhist trends.
One trend was the “intellectual” path focused on a liberating knowledge, which prompted early Buddhists to formulate their own versions (e.g., non-self, Conditioned Origination).
The second was the “ascetic” path focused on suppressing all activity to stop karma, which led to the inclusion of ascetic practices and meditative states aimed at mental cessation.
The Buddha’s original teaching was a novel “Middle Path” to end suffering through awareness and the four stages of meditation, distinct from these competing methods.
The integration of these external influences created internal contradictions that drove the subsequent development of Buddhist doctrine.

3. Arranging the doctrine

The origin of the dharma theory

After the Buddha’s death, his disciples preserved his teachings by arranging them into lists of concepts, such as the Four Noble Truths and the Five Aggregates.
This tendency to create numerical lists is evident in texts like the Añguttara Nikāya and the Sañgīti Sūtra.
This practice of enumeration eventually gave rise to the “dharma theory”.
An example of this is the thirty-seven “Dharmas Helpful to Enlightenment,” which is a composite collection of seven pre-existing, overlapping lists.
The word dharma originally meant “doctrine” or “mental property” but its meaning expanded to include non-mental elements when classification schemes like the Five Aggregates were used to categorize all phenomena.
The doctrine of “non-self” was applied to these dharmas, leading to the ontological view that only the constituent parts (dharmas) truly exist, while composite entities like a person or a chariot do not.
This led to a two-truth doctrine: conventional truth (where composite objects exist) and ultimate truth (where only dharmas exist).
The Pudgalavāda school opposed this, arguing for the existence of a “person” (pudgala) that was neither identical to nor different from the aggregates.
Buddhist cosmology, with its three planes of existence, was interconnected with the spiritual states achieved in meditation.

Systematising the dharma theory

The Sarvāstivāda school was a leader in systematizing the dharma theory.
They developed the doctrine of momentariness, which states that all conditioned dharmas last for only a single instant.
They created a new five-category classification system called the Pañcavastuka: form, mind, mental dharmas, conditioned factors separated from the mind, and non-conditioned dharmas.
New dharmas were introduced to solve theoretical problems, such as avijñapti (non-information) for karmic continuity, saṃskṛtalakṣaṇa (characteristics of the conditioned) to explain momentariness, and prāpti (obtaining) to explain how a stream of dharmas belongs to a particular individual.
The Sarvāstivādins reinterpreted the traditional twelve-fold chain of Conditioned Origination and developed a new, detailed doctrine of causality involving six causes and four conditions.
The school’s name, meaning “everything exists,” reflects their core doctrine that past, present, and future dharmas all have real existence.
They also developed an atomic theory where matter is composed of indivisible atoms, which are themselves composites of various dharmas, blurring the distinction between substance and property.
This systematization was seen as essential for liberation, as correct knowledge of all dharmas was considered a prerequisite for understanding the Four Noble Truths and attaining Nirvāṇa.
The Sautrāntika school emerged as a reaction, rejecting many Sarvāstivāda doctrines, such as the existence of past and future dharmas, and introducing the concept of “seeds” (bīja) to explain karmic continuity.

Concluding observations

The Sarvāstivāda school’s effort to create a rational, internally consistent doctrinal system was unique compared to other schools like the Pāli school.
This rationalisation was likely a response to the need to defend the doctrine in debates with other thinkers.
The author speculates that this rational tradition may have been influenced by contact with the Hellenistic Greek kingdoms in northwest India, where the Sarvāstivāda school was prominent.
The text Milindapañha, a dialogue between a Greek king and a Buddhist monk, supports the idea of such intellectual exchanges.
This introduction of rationality established a tradition of debate and mutual influence that shaped the subsequent development of Indian philosophy.

4. Mahāyāna

Early Mahāyāna

Mahāyāna Buddhism is characterized by the aspiration to attain Buddhahood, which was considered a higher goal than the Arhatship sought in earlier traditions.
Followers of this path, known as Bodhisattvas, aimed not only for their own liberation but for the liberation of all living beings.
This movement, initially a minority among monks, was not a new sect but a different spiritual aspiration within existing monastic communities.
The Bodhisattva path involves cultivating traditional practices as well as the “perfections” (pāramitā), with the “perfection of wisdom” (prajñāpāramitā) being the most important.
The perfection of wisdom emphasizes the unreality of the phenomenal world, comparing it to a magical illusion.
Mahāyāna extended this concept of unreality to the dharmas (elements of existence), teaching the “emptiness of the dharmas” (dharmaśūnyatā), a significant departure from Abhidharma Buddhism.
This doctrine was partly supported by a linguistic reinterpretation of the term anattā from “not the self” to “without self,” implying dharmas lack any intrinsic nature.
The idea of emptiness is linked to meditative states, such as the Attainment of Cessation, where the absence of thought and feeling is interpreted as reflecting the ultimate unreality of the world.
While Prajñāpāramitā texts use terms suggesting a highest existence (like tathatā or “thusness”), they ultimately conclude that this, too, is empty and unreal.

Madhyamaka

Founded by Nāgārjuna (c. 2nd century CE), this school used rigorous logical analysis to deconstruct the doctrines of Abhidharma Buddhism, particularly Sarvāstivāda.
Nāgārjuna’s method, detailed in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, was to demonstrate that concepts central to the phenomenal world and dharma theory—such as causality, time, motion, and “own nature” (svabhāva)—are logically incoherent.
His arguments often relied on the premise that words in a proposition must correspond to real entities, leading to contradictions that “proved” the unreality of the phenomenal world.
Nāgārjuna reinterpreted Conditioned Origination as the ultimate proof of emptiness (śūnyatā), arguing that because all things are dependently arisen, they lack independent, real existence.
The school distinguishes between two truths: a limited or conventional truth (saṃvṛtisatya), where the phenomenal world and Buddhist teachings are functional, and a highest or ultimate truth (paramārthasatya), which is emptiness.

Further developments in Mahāyāna

Mahāyāna developed a variety of doctrines beyond emptiness, sometimes seen as distinct “turns of the wheel of Dharma”.
The concept of Dharmakāya (“body of teaching”) evolved from meaning the Buddha’s teachings to signifying a collection of a Buddha’s perfected qualities, and eventually to a form of highest, absolute existence.
The Tathāgatagarbha (“embryo of the Buddha”) doctrine posits that all beings have an inherently pure, latent Buddhahood within them, which is described with terms like ‘eternal’, ‘joyful’, and ‘self’ (ātman), resembling non-Buddhist concepts.
The Yogācāra school focused on spiritual practice (yoga) and developed several key concepts.
Ālayavijñāna (“fundamental consciousness”) was introduced as a subconscious substratum that carries karmic seeds and ensures continuity of the individual, functioning as a substitute for the rejected self.
The doctrine of Cittamātra or Vijñaptimātra (“mind-only” or “making-known-only”) states that what we perceive as an external world is nothing more than representations within our own consciousness.
Yogācāra systematized reality into a “triple nature”: the imagined (parikalpita) nature (the illusion of external objects), the dependent (paratantra) nature (the flow of consciousness), and the perfected (pariniṣpanna) nature (consciousness understood as empty of the imagined).

The logico-epistemological school

Led by Dignāga (c. 6th century CE), this school developed a sophisticated system of logic and epistemology.
It posits two valid means of knowledge corresponding to two distinct realms of reality: perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna).
Perception grasps the ultimate reality of unique, indescribable particulars (“own characteristic,” svalakṣana) and is free from conceptual thought.
Inference and language operate in the conventional realm of mental constructs and universals (“general characteristic,” sāmānyalakṣana).
Dignāga introduced the apoha (“exclusion”) theory of meaning, which states that words denote objects not by pointing to what they are, but by excluding what they are not (e.g., “book” excludes all “non-books”).
This theory provided a structured conceptual reality without needing to accept the real existence of universals, thereby protecting Buddhist thought from Madhyamaka critiques.
The ultimate goal is implied to be a pure, non-conceptual perception of reality, which constitutes liberating insight.

5. Final observations

The text’s presentation of Buddhist teaching in India is not exhaustive and omits the third Vehicle, Tantric Buddhism (Mantrayāna or Vajrayāna).
Vajrayāna is noted for its use of magical formulas and rites, which has continuity with Mahāyāna concepts like the magical power of Bodhisattvas.
The chapter will discuss Buddhist hermeneutics, Buddhism’s influence on non-Buddhist traditions in India, and key landmarks in its development.

1. Hermeneutics

The variety of teachings (e.g., Abhidharma vs. Mahāyāna), all attributed to the Buddha, created a need for hermeneutics, or methods of interpretation, to resolve contradictions.
Early attempts to establish the Buddha’s authentic words included councils (saṅgīti) where monks performed common recitations, though disagreements existed from the beginning.
Rules were established to test the authenticity of teachings by comparing them with the Sūtra and Vinaya.
A key interpretive rule distinguished between discourses to be taken literally (nītārtha) and those needing interpretation (neyārtha), a tool often used to validate one’s own school of thought.
The concept of “skill in means” (upāyakauśalya) was used to explain why the Buddha taught in different ways to different people, as illustrated by the Lotus Sūtra’s parable of the burning house, where different vehicles are promised but all receive the best one (Mahāyāna).

2. Influences outside Buddhism

Buddhism not only received influences but also exerted significant influence on other Indian movements, including Brahmanical philosophies and the practice of yoga.
Early traces of Buddhist influence are found in the Mahābhārata, which contains concepts similar to the Sarvāstivādins’ four characteristics of the conditioned and a fourfold meditation (dhyānayoga) aimed at Nirvāṇa.
Patañjali’s grammar, the Mahābhāṣya, was likely influenced by Sarvāstivāda’s linguistic dharmas, which helps date the Sarvāstivāda Pañcavastuka system to the 2nd century BCE.
The Brahmanical Vaiśeṣika system appears to be a reaction to Sarvāstivāda, sharing its rationality and doctrines of atoms and momentariness, but differing by asserting the reality of composite things.
The Sāṃkhya doctrine of satkāryavāda (the effect pre-existing in the cause) may have developed in response to Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamika philosophy.
Indian logic developed through constant debate and exchange between Buddhist and Brahmanical thinkers.
Mahāyāna Buddhism influenced Advaita Vedānta, evident in the works of Bhartṛhari and Gauḍapāda; the great philosopher Śaṅkara was even accused of being a “crypto-Buddhist.”
Classical yoga, as codified in the Yoga Sūtra, was heavily influenced by Buddhism, borrowing the goal of transforming the mind by destroying impurities and adopting concepts like the Four Stages of Meditation and the Four Unmeasurables.

3. Landmarks

Buddhism originated in the Śramaṇa movement, sharing the goals of liberation from rebirth but proposing a unique method.
The doctrine of non-self evolved from a practical teaching into a core dogma, leading first to the dharma theory (where only constituent elements are real) and later to the denial of the reality of even the dharmas.
Reflections on the non-existence of composite things led to the idea that language creates our illusory belief in them; Nāgārjuna extended this to logical propositions to prove the phenomenal world’s unreality.
A tradition of rationality and debate, possibly influenced by contact with Greeks, became a defining characteristic of later Indian philosophy.
Theories about religious practice and meditative experience consistently shaped Buddhist conceptions of reality, as seen in developments like Yogācāra idealism.
These factors created a rich tradition that profoundly influenced the development of classical Indian philosophy and yoga.